Sunday, December 11, 2011

I try not to be but sometimes it happens. For example I drive past a new build in Chantenay Parade every day and like most new builds there is a bin out on the nature strip so that the builder can get rid of the rubbish. Now some muppet or collection of muppets has been dumping their unwanted furniture around the bin. There are beds and mattresses, chairs, a table, an old treadmill and a couple of ancient TVs as well as boxes of general household garbage. These idiots are showing absolutely no respect for people who are going to be their new neighbours.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Must admit that my favourite jeans are Levi 101's. Pulling on a pair with button up fly is like meeting an old friend. Of course these days the waist has gotten somewhat bigger than that of my first pair circa 1974.

It was a long time before Mum agreed to let me wear denim. She'd send me to the snow in shorts in winter and off to school in grey woollen sorts all year round but there wasn't a pair of long legged trousers to be seen anywhere in my single wardrobe at Box Hill South. Until Form 1 that is.

That year, 1969, we had an excursion at the end of the year to the gold mining town of Maldon and I was the somewhat embarrassed wearer of the only pair of long pants I owned - brown checked woollen trousers. At least I was warm but when everyone else is wearing jeans it was a bit hard to take.

Mum eventually realised that maybe denim wasn't so bad after all and I got a pair of Stirling jeans - the ones with the checkered flag logo and a really cool pocket on the side of the leg where you could fit a comb. Not that I needed one because they were the years when Dad would take me up to the barbers on the corner of Middleborough and Eley Roads for a college cut. These days it would be called a number one.

After the Stirling jeans came my first really expensive pair - Amco Heavyweights with a suede patch on the back. Not quite Levis but I was getting there. Of course as I got older and graduated to Lee Jeans which were bought at a mens wear store in Flinders street in the City next to Lindrums Pool Hall. If you read this Andrew help me out here.

And as we got older the jeans were pulled down a little further exposing both the few pubic hairs we had at the front and the bum crack at the back - unless Mum was around of course.

Mid to late 70's the fashion changes again. The legs got wider and Juz Jeans and Staggers were the brand of choice. I bought a pair of Staggers that were so tight I could barely move. The sales girl told me they would stretch but after a couple of wears I gave them to my sister Karen because my voice kept getting higher.

Another thing I remember about the jeans of Burwood High days were that for a while there is was really cool to wear them as low down as possible, showing a few pubic hairs if you had them or exposing the bum crack if you didn't. Of course we had graduated from y fronts to jockettes in those days which were pretty brief and not big enough to show above the waist of the jeans anyway.

Jeans are still my trouser of choice these days and over the years I've gone through the plain navy denim, light blue denim, brown denim and white denim. The there were the acid wash and stone washed versions in black or navy mostly with legs that varied from stove pipe to wide flares. But through all that the 501's have remained the favourite.